Travel agencies desperate for flights to resume amid lack of business
Shwan Anwar, the owner of Dream Way travel agency says he had 30 employees before the pandemic began. The number has now dropped to five, with four branches of the company in Erbil now closed.
"More than 250 companies who were working with us have been [financially] damaged. Some of them have completely disappeared and gone bankrupt, unfortunately," Anwar told Rudaw.
As part of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority banned commercial passenger flights on March 17, and has extended the measure several times.
The nationwide ban on commercial passenger flights has been extended to July 1.
The ban includes all the external and internal flights, except for military, medical aid, and cargo flights, meaning travel agencies have little work to do.
Anwar says he knows of 12 companies in Erbil which have "lost their resources and cannot get back to work due to the damages."
Anwar, who is also deputy head of the Kurdistan Aviation Association, says there are 800 registered travel agencies in the Kurdistan Region, employing around 5,000 people.
"Ninety nine percent of travel agencies have shut their doors," he added.
Saed Jalal Saed Abdulla, owner of the Jazeera Kish travel agency, used to work with seven others to sell flight tickets. Now, he works alone, and has few customers.
"We have lost all [our] employees. Their livelihoods are gone," Abdulla said, putting the estimated loss of his "medium-sized" company at "$10,000 in the past four months."
The ticket flight price hike is another barrier for local agencies.
Despite the ban, a limited number of charter flights have allowed foreign nationals to leave the country, but prices are much higher than normal.
"The price of tickets is much higher than it must be. For tickets, the price for somebody who wants to return it ranges from $1,500 to $3,000. They had travelled here at a normal price," says Abdulla Sabir, owner of the Gashti Aram travel company.
Rudaw
